TIBCO Scribe Is a Powerful, Drag-and-Drop Tool for Data Integration and Transformation
Updated October 28, 2020
TIBCO Scribe Is a Powerful, Drag-and-Drop Tool for Data Integration and Transformation
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with TIBCO Cloud Integration (including BusinessWorks and Scribe)
We currently use Scribe for data integration between our CRM (Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement) and our ERP (an old AS400) as well as our CRM and our external website (HubSpot). We are also migrating to a new ERP (Dynamics 365 Business Central) and Scribe continues to play a roll in keeping our data integrated. Besides "near real-time" updates for data used is both systems, we also use Scribe for massive data uploads and edits (such as with our new ERP), as well as transferring data from our ERP into line-of-business model-driven PowerApps using the Common Data Service. Obviously, being connected so much with our CRM, much of the usage is for Sales and Marketing. But Finance, Purchasing, and our Creative Labs and Quality Control Labs also benefit.
- Near-real time integration of multiple systems along with data validation and translation in the integration maps.
- Integration Events have also been used in the past to display related data from a different system on-load, rather than always copying data and storing it in multiple places.
- Massive data uploads are useful, for example, when adding a new field to records and loading correct data on all the records as a starting place.
- TIBCO Scribe also has so many connectors. We've used D365CE, D365BC, SQL, Excel, HubSpot, and ODBC.
- Logic built into the functions and drag and drop actions make creating maps pretty painless and very powerful.
- Some level of beginner training would be great. There are some commands that aren't immediately clear what the slight difference is between each one and what scenarios make one command better than another.
- Similarly, example Scribe maps could also be useful, if that's possible. Again, it was a little slow for me getting started and seeing examples always makes things easier for me to understand.
- Invaluable data connection. We wouldn't have been able to transition from on-prem to the cloud without it.
- Getting to the cloud has saved us money from a hardware perspective, and I think has also helped us attract new employees more interested in leading edge technologies.
- Getting to the cloud has also allowed quicker tool development for line-of-business apps making us much more agile and nimble and more quickly delivering value to our internal and external customers.
- Keeping Leads and Contacts updated between our CRM (Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement) and our website (HubSpot)
- Keeping data in our ERP (currently an old AS400, soon Dynamics 365 Business Central) connected and updated with our CRM
- Extracting key data from our ERP (for example, delays in shipments) into a custom, line-of-business application to notify customer support to contact the customer, when necessary
- Mass, ad-hoc data uploads
3 - We are IT data analysts, business analysts, and developers, each with our own areas of expertise. It would be nice to get additional business users involved and more hands-on, but thus far, that has not been the case. Instead, Scribe is managed solely by IT while the business logic is determined by the business users.
At the time, Microsoft Flow or Power Automate as it is now called, was still in its infancy. And even today, I don't feel Flow/Power Automate does a great job handling the software life cycle. It doesn't easily go from a Development environment, then to Testing, UAT, Training, and Production. It's getting better, but it's not there yet. And Flows are too connected to the user who created it. Scribe's connection to a user account is only in setting up your connector, and even then, you have options to "run as" another user. Flow (Power Automate) does offer additional simple actions, something like sending an email or posting a tweet, but for copying and transforming data from one system to another and doing this relatively simply, Scribe is hard to beat.
- Product Features
- Product Usability
- Product Reputation
Features and Usability go hand in hand. Powerful features that met our business need coupled with usability. If a tool is powerful but hard to use, it won't gain traction. Likewise, if a tool is easy to use but the functionality won't meet the business need, we would have no use for it. Scribe hit both aspects for us, powerful features that met the business need and usability that we could figure out easy enough without Scribe becoming someone's full-time role.
- Mass data updating has been useful and wasn't part of our initial investment. But adding a new field and setting the default value for all existing records has been useful for business requirements.
- Coupling Scribe data integration with the functionality of CRM workflows has been useful. Creatively combing functionality of each to meet requirements has been a nice bonus to solve some business problems.
- We are using Scribe not only for the day-to-day data integrations, but also for the go-live process with our new ERP, Business Central. Copying data from CRM into BC as well as getting data in BC from our old ERP, and then mass updating the data in CRM as the business process is changing going forward will be instrumental for success.
- Self-taught
As I mentioned before, getting started was a little slow for me. We had two different consultants who were using Scribe for some work they were doing for us, and we got some information education from them. But truthfully, as I learned the product more and more myself, I found somewhat better ways to do some things. So most of it was self-taught, and we figured things out as we went. I think like anything, hands-on, real usage is the best way to learn. And the best way to do that is dive in and figure it out. I will say Scribe offers a useful manual, but I wish there were more videos and "real world usage" blog examples.
It absolutely has improved my effectiveness. As I've mentioned, mass data updates has saved me time, for example, when adding a new field and mass updating all the existing records with the default value. While there are other ways to do this, using Scribe has made it faster. In addition, I'm getting a lot of value using the Excel connector for ad hoc data uploads.
In addition, Scribe is integral to keeping our business systems connected. Before, users would have to open multiple systems to check related data. But now with Scribe, we are able to keep data in sync near real time and save our users time going back and forth between our ERP and CRM.
In addition, Scribe is integral to keeping our business systems connected. Before, users would have to open multiple systems to check related data. But now with Scribe, we are able to keep data in sync near real time and save our users time going back and forth between our ERP and CRM.
Do you think TIBCO Integration (including BusinessWorks and Flogo) delivers good value for the price?
Not sure
Are you happy with TIBCO Integration (including BusinessWorks and Flogo)'s feature set?
Yes
Did TIBCO Integration (including BusinessWorks and Flogo) live up to sales and marketing promises?
Yes
Did implementation of TIBCO Integration (including BusinessWorks and Flogo) go as expected?
Yes
Would you buy TIBCO Integration (including BusinessWorks and Flogo) again?
Yes
TIBCO Integration (including BusinessWorks and Flogo) Feature Ratings
Evaluating TIBCO Cloud Integration (including BusinessWorks and Scribe) and Competitors
Yes - We had a custom integration tool our Microsoft Partner had developed internally. This tool kept our on-prem AS400 ERP integrated with our on-prem Microsoft CRM and was good for what we needed it to do at the time. The user interface wasn't very user friendly, but working with our Partner, we could get it configured the way we needed. But when we went to the cloud with our CRM, this custom tool was no longer an option. Looking at the market, we compared Microsoft Flow (now called Power Automate) and Scribe. Both had a much better user interface than our previous integration tool. But Scribe won out at the time, hands down. Power Automate (Flow) just couldn't compare with the functionality and connectors that Scribe offered. Power Automate is catching up, becoming a much more viable and attractive option, both with many more connectors as well as improvements around application lifecycle management. But at the time, Scribe won out.
Purchasing
First, of the greatest importance were out of the box connectors, what systems could natively, quickly, and easily be integrated. Next was the user experience. How user-friendly is the user interface? Scribe has a very nice drag-and-drop UI. But there is a lot of power in it as well. The elements you can add to an integration map can do a lot, looking up related data, matching on multiple fields, looping through data, etc. And there is a very nice way to standardize your data or change the data types when going from field to field. There are simple, "Excel-like" formulas that allow you to manipulate the data to make it "acceptable" from one system to the other, whether it's a data type change or a type of "naming convention" necessary in one system but not the other, or if it's related data that's not stored in the same table, Scribe can do it all.
I think the only thing I would add is maybe paying for some additional training. Or maybe that's a more in-depth, technical demo during the selection process, so that we were introduced to more of the native functionality. That's not a slight against TIBCO Scribe in any way. It's actually because the tool is so powerful, I think getting some formal training would be useful. As we have used the tool over the years, we've continued to learn more of its capabilities. But this means our first few maps could have been written better than they were. We eventually went back and re-wrote several of them to make the integration much more efficient, but at the time, we just didn't know what we didn't know. We were able to get it working and doing what we needed it to do, but we improved the architecture later, or we later learned there were much simpler ways to do the same thing, so our maps didn't need to be as complex as they were originally.
Using TIBCO Cloud Integration (including BusinessWorks and Scribe)
3 - Understanding the business process is the most useful thing. Then also understanding the data, where to find it, and how the data is related to other data. And then combining it all in a logical fashion to ask the right questions of the business process subject matter experts and creatively think of how to build the solution. It would be great if we could get more business users involved hands-on, but as it is right now, IT owns Scribe and business users define the business process. So the direct users creating and updating Scribe maps are data analysts, business analysts, and developers.
- I think just continuing to build on what we have, so more data integration between systems will be useful.
- I think we also need to use more in the data retrieval Scribe maps and not just data copying. So using Integration Events where the data isn't copied and stored in both systems but instead, the data is simply retrieved and displayed to the user when necessary. This obviously cuts down on storage and allows more flexibility with our timing. Also, the systems only do the work when the user needs them to do the work, rather than firing a Scribe map off every 5 minutes, looking for changes, updating data, then waiting 5 minutes for the next scheduled run. Instead, this is on-demand.
- We are implementing a new ERP, and not only will Scribe be vital for the day-to-day data integration, it will also be key for the go-live process, copying data from one system into new systems.
Using TIBCO Cloud Integration (including BusinessWorks and Scribe)
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Convenient Feel confident using | None |
- Drag and drop the commands into your Scribe map
- Data updates - drag and drop field to field
- "Excel-like" functions for data validation and transformation, when necessary
- The Integration Event had a bit of a steep learning curve as I also had to learn JSON functionality, but the capability was incredibly powerful once I got it working
- There is so much power and capability, it was almost overwhelming figuring out where to start
- A step-by-step guide to getting started would be useful to walk a beginning user through a simple integration, from beginning to end, setting up connections and creating and testing integration maps